Mindy Kaling Shares the Best (and Worst) Career Advice She's Ever Received

Since graduating from Dartmouth in 2001, Mindy Kaling—a triple-threat writer, actress, and producer—has built a blockbuster career. She was a heroic tour de force in The Office, playing girly-girl Kelly Kapoor for nearly a decade. She wrote the gut-busting New York Times best-seller: Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? (And Other Concerns). And, now, she's the powerhouse showrunner and star of one of our favorite shows, The Mindy Project. Ahead of the series' third-season premiere tonight on Fox (we'll be live-tweeting from @glamourmag so come watch with us!), Kaling gave a ton of get-ahead advice to an audience at AOL headquarters last Friday. My favorite parts: On the moment she knew she wanted to be a writer-actor: She was just seven or eight, if you can believe it. "My mom was a doctor. [She] didn't want to leave me with a nanny after school, so I would take the bus to her office, go to [the phlebotomy room, where she'd draw patients blood], and then I'd sit there with a typewriter, and I'd either read or write…. And if someone had to come in and get their blood taken, I would just get shuffled out, and then a pregnant woman

Since graduating from Dartmouth in 2001, Mindy Kaling—a triple-threat writer, actress, and producer—has built a blockbuster career. She was a heroic tour de force in The Office, playing girly-girl Kelly Kapoor for nearly a decade. She wrote the gut-busting New York Times best-seller: Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? (And Other Concerns). And, now, she's the powerhouse showrunner and star of one of our favorite shows, The Mindy Project. Ahead of the series' third-season premiere tonight on Fox (we'll be live-tweeting from @glamourmag so come watch with us!), Kaling gave a ton of get-ahead advice to an audience at AOL headquarters last Friday. My favorite parts:

On the moment she knew she wanted to be a writer-actor: She was just seven or eight, if you can believe it. "My mom was a doctor. [She] didn't want to leave me with a nanny after school, so I would take the bus to her office, go to [the phlebotomy room, where she'd draw patients blood], and then I'd sit there with a typewriter, and I'd either read or write…. And if someone had to come in and get their blood taken, I would just get shuffled out, and then a pregnant woman would just be sitting there, getting her blood drawn, and, I'd...wait impatiently, and then she'd leave, and I'd come back in and start writing again…. And I think that* that feeling* of waiting for this pregnant woman to leave so I could finish writing my little weird plays...is when I was like, Oh, I love doing this."

__On having a blueprint for her career:__I've always been one of those weird kids, where, like, when I would go to high school, I would make lists of all the things I wanted to do, and then check them off, like a serial murderer…. I've never been just one of those, live for the moment and who cares what happens, c'est la vie [people]…. I was highly organized…. I had a plan up until now, which was to get my own television show that I would create. And, so now, [that I'm living my life's dream] I have to start thinking [about what else I want to do] unless I die. I could die this week or something, and that would be pretty dramatic and cool, but barring that, I have to make some more plans. So now I'm looking inward, like, maybe I should have kids, get married."

On the best work advice she's received: "The best advice I ever got is probably from [the creator of The Office] Greg Daniels," Kaling said. "One piece of advice he gave me, which seems very simple but is very hard to follow all the time, is 'Be kind.' If you're in a room with, a bunch of sardonic, East Coast-educated impatient writers, it's very hard to show kindness. And I think that especially graduating from comedy writer to running a show where, like, I'm a manager, I can be sued for, like, human resources issues—that's not something that I came into this doing—so like being kind to people, and listening to people tell you about their families, and their lives…. I think that was a very useful."

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On the worst work advice she's received:"I've gotten pretty bad advice about needing to be skinny to be on TV…. My first agent told me that I should go on a juice cleanse. This was like 2004, when juice cleanses were like still like, very dicey. Now...90 percent of the people here are on a juice cleanse, so it's not weird now…. She's not my agent anymore."

On cultivating confidence at work:"I was always born with this delusional feeling that I could do anything. That was instilled in me by my parents. And if you're not lucky enough to have parents who give you outsize confidence as a kid...my advice is always...not to focus on anyone telling you you can't do anything, or the politics of your situation, but to just focus on the situation…. I could spend my entire life, doing panels on being a chubby woman of color writing a TV show, and it would be useful to some people, but I wouldn't be writing my TV show. And all my competition, all the white men who are doing the same thing as me, are not doing those panels—they're just getting better and better at their job. So for me, the only advice I ever give women is we want to support each other, without distracting each other. Heads down, work really hard, pretend your parents lock you in a third room of whatever, and just do your work."

On Joan Rivers: "There are two things I loved about Joan Rivers. One is that she was completely fearless, and she didn't care about being likeable. And she made fun of me on several occasions on her show for outfits of mine that she detested. But she was [also] totally fine with taking an insult... And so she was both someone who dished a lot but also taught you like, hey, don't take it personally. And so that was very useful…. [And two] I also think, she died working. And that's what I want to do."

Watch AOL's entire interview with Mindy below:

*And if you're a fan of The Mindy Project, come check out the brand-new Watch With Us page over at Glamour.com/Entertainment. We'll be live-tweeting the premiere, plus dishing about all your favorite TV shows every day! *